It’s hard to deny that gaming has changed a lot since EA first became a major playing in the gaming industry; and if you’re old like me there’s a pretty good chance you’ll remember some key titles which EA created. For example, on the Sega Genesis I fell in love with Jungle Strike; and certainly the company at that time were driving innovation and certainly one of the best studios in the west.
That said, it’s also hard to deny that EA’s reputation started to take a hit in the 2000s, as they developed a reputation for buying up smaller studios and then… well yeah, you know the rest. Bullfrog productions and WestWood are a couple of names which still hurt today (although I will give them credit, the recent Command & Conquer remaster was pretty decent). But – no more Dungeon Keepers, no more Magic Carpet – and the less said about Syndicate the better I think.
Anyway; it seems that EA are now the ones being gobbled up, for $55 billion USD dollars, a figure which is even higher than the absurd amount of cash Microsoft laid down to buy Activision-Blizzard not to long ago.
From an official press release:
“REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) (“EA” or the “Company”), a global leader in interactive entertainment, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an investor consortium (“the Consortium”) comprised of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners in an all-cash transaction that values EA at an enterprise value of approximately $55 billion. The transaction positions EA to accelerate innovation and growth to build the future of entertainment.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Consortium will acquire 100% of EA, with PIF rolling over its existing 9.9% stake in the Company. EA stockholders will receive $210 per share in cash. The per share purchase price represents a 25% premium to EA’s unaffected share price of $168.32 at market close on September 25, 2025, the last fully unaffected trading day, and a premium to EA’s unaffected all-time high of $179.01 at market close on August 14, 2025.”
There were rumors this was on the verge of happening last week; and now of course it is officially confirmed – that is once it has passed approval from the usual regulatory bodies.
The state of the gaming industry over the last few years has been a hot topic, with mass layoffs, studio closures, games becoming more expensive and of course lots of other problems such as consoles simply not getting cheaper. That said, there is some balance to this: we’ve had some absolutely fantastic games from studios such as Konami and Capcom (I recently did a performance analysis on Silent Hill F’s PC port and it was pretty darn good).
Meanwhile, indie game developers seem to be going strength-to-strength. There is a lot of competition in the market, but games such as Hades 2 and of course, Hollow Knight Silksong demonstrate that the market is there and can support excellent games.
Getting back to the here and now though, EA have been bought out – and it will no doubt send shockwaves through the industry, especially because a lot of other studios are so unstable (and that’s to say nothing of the fun and games we’ve seen from Ubisoft.)
Let’s hope with EA being bought out, we still see Mass Effect and other key games being released.
